Short Summary

Late this afternoon (Saturday July 27) a young man in the Sydney suburb of Revesby shot dead his mother in law and is holding his wife and child as hostage.

Description

Late this afternoon (Saturday July 27) a young man in the Sydney suburb of Revesby shot dead his mother in law and is holding his wife and child as hostage.

The seige in many ways is identical to the seige at Grenfield - another outer suburb of Sydney - when a gunman held his wife and child hostage. The gunman, Wally Mellish, held his wife and child hostage for eight days before surrendering to police. Mellish is now undergoing psychiatric treatment.

The gunman in the incident today has been receiving psychiatric treatment for six months. His mother in law drove his wife and child to the home of the man today. An argument developed and it's believed the woman was attempting to drive off when she was shot dead. The younger woman and her child were flung by the gunman into the house and within a short while the scene began to develop similar to that staged by Mellish only weeks ago.

It's believed the father of the gunman pleaded with him, but the gunman warned he would shoot him if he attempted to come within a short range of the house.

At this stage Grenfield was being duplicated Squads of riot police - many of them in bullet proof vests - took over the area. They commandeered the house next door and scaled four residential blocks off to all traffic. Meanwhile another detachment of police managed to clamber inside the death car and drive it out of range.

The gunman is described as 21 and the situation worse than that of the Grenfield shooting. At this stage - to our knowledge - police have not been able to communicate with the gunman.